The first clue that Jeb Bush might not be the inevitable Republican presidential nominee the oddsmakers had predicted early on was his dramatic weight loss last spring. The former Florida governor with the doubled-edged sword of a surname was on the Paleo diet, religiously spurning carbs. It seemed a bit extreme and uptown for the candidate of the moderate middle.
Eating like a caveman might be hip in New York or Hollywood, but try telling the voters at the state fair that you don't eat pie, ice cream or corn dogs. The Republican establishment was throwing oodles of money at Mr. Bush's campaign because he was supposed to be the balanced and electable adult in a field of unhinged and unelectable adolescents. But if he was willing to shun the basics of a balanced diet, would he embrace a fad foreign policy, too?
After last week's televised Republican debate, the third of eight confirmed so far on the primary schedule, that question has basically become moot. Mr. Bush is the incredible shrinking candidate in more ways than one. He has been a disaster on the campaign trail and fails even to crack double digits in opinion polls. Just about everyone who is anyone on the American right has written off his candidacy.
"Jeb Bush can go back to eating carbs," the Drudge Report's Matt Drudge tweeted at the end of Wednesday's CNBC debate, officially putting the Bush campaign on a death watch. Mr. Bush's insistence the next day that his campaign was not "terminal" elicited only pity from the pundits.
The conventional wisdom has always been that former president George H.W. Bush favoured Jeb over his other son, George W., to succeed him the White House. Jeb, it went, was smarter than his older brother and, like dad, more moderate. But it's clear now why W. beat Jeb to the Oval Office: Jeb may have the brains, but he has all the presence of a concrete block.
And just how smart is he, really? Last May, it took him five tries, over several days, to settle on an answer to where he stood on his brother's 2003 decision to invade Iraq. Granted, the question is a minefield for all Republican contenders, and for plenty of Democrats, including presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton, who voted to invade Iraq as a senator. But Mr. Bush fumbled it badly.
Indeed, he seemed totally unprepared for the question, when, of all people, he should have anticipated it. The main obstacle to a third Bush presidency was always going to be George W. Bush's record on Iraq. Jeb eventually settled on a position: He would not have invaded knowing what he knows now, but defends his brother's record in turning it around with a 2007 troop surge and preventing post-Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. But his early fumble stuck.
It also revealed a pattern. In August, Mr. Bush botched explaining his position on federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and other reproductive services: "I'm not sure we need half-a-billion dollars for women's health issues." Cue the cringes.
Early on, Mr. Bush was so eager to avoid any association with his brother that he adopted a slogan – "Jeb!" – that omitted his last name altogether. The exclamation point was meant to convey élan but provoked only ridicule as Donald Trump made jokes about his rival's "low energy."
With his campaign in crisis, Mr. Bush has increasingly relied on his older brother's vast network of donors and operatives to help him stay afloat. But it looks like a lost cause. He remains awkward on the debate stage, completely out of his element among a field of fast talkers and flame-throwers. Even on his supposed strong suit – policy – he fails to impress.
The cruellest blow in Wednesday's debate was delivered by Mr. Bush's former protégé, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who accused his onetime mentor of attacking his attendance record in the Senate because Mr. Bush's consultants told him to. Mr. Bush reacted as you would expect a concrete slab might. By Thursday, the establishment was already moving its money to Mr. Rubio.
"I speak of his candidacy in the past tense, which is rude though I don't mean it rudely," former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote of Mr. Bush after the debate. "It's just hard to see how this can work. By hard I mean, for me, impossible."
Ouch.
Konrad Yakabuski